Who knew that the most inflammatory picture on social media this weekend would be two brave souls dressed in florescent vagina costumes?
The pedestrian pussies were an instant hit with the crowd.
On inauguration weekend, while Eve Ensler, the creator of Vagina Monologues, was running a piece in The Guardian about how Donald Trump was giving women flashbacks and nightmares, I was exiting Grand Central into the mass of humanity that had gathered for the Women’s March. In the Saturday morning sunlight, we stopped in our collective tracks at the glowing sight of two life-sized vaginas, waving to us from the curb. The stuffed anatomy became an instant hit with the crowd and unleashed laughter from me that had been stifled inside for months.
The vaginas stood about five and a half feet, and two sheepish grins peeked out from the clitoral region of the outfit’s labia. If not for the Women’s March the costumes might have been mistaken for spicy tacos. The female vagina carried a sign, a direct reference to our new President’s infamous phrase, which read “This Pu**y Grabs Back.”
I instantly snapped a picture and uploaded it to my Facebook account, assuming most of my like-minded followers would appreciate the comedic irony of these mobile plush pussies.
Despite the vagina’s self-censored sign, the picture’s critics chimed in early. One middle-aged white guy, who I’ve known since grade school, must have pecked at warp speed because almost immediately after my post he commented, “I certainly hope that my Kate’s nieces that are marching don’t have to see this . . .” I couldn’t help but hear the indignation in his response, “my Kate” he claimed his wife as if she were a possession, while gallantly professing to protect a woman’s more delicate virtues.
“Don’t worry,” I wrote back, “your nieces probably know what a vagina looks like.”
“I agree with your cause, . . .” he persisted, “and admire your passion . . . But I ALSO believe in the actions of “decent society” and I think dressing up like they did is a tad bit vulgar and diminishes the good reasons you are marching for . . . Sorry I’m “prude” . . .”
Is this where I mention that this is the same man who spent months on his social media soapbox bashing a female candidate with misogynistic rhetoric? A man whose sexual awaking was made on the reputations of the young women of my past? If he only found it “a tad bit vulgar” from where did his angry and continuous response come?
Over the next few hours, this whimsical picture spiraled into a thread of over fifty-six responses that proclaimed to champion women’s virtue, including commenters who thought the visual of fuzzy face-frame vaginas “were a little much,” and “degrading toward women.” Friends I know who also posted the picture had fans dropping off their pages citing “you’ve stooped to a new low.”
But a few short months ago, many of these same commenters had pulled the lever for Trump, a man who made the exploitation of women a cornerstone of his public platform.
When friends jumped on the thread to voice their support of the pedestrian vaginas, the first guy’s tone turned defensive as if he was suddenly the person under attack. And because this whole dialogue played out in real-time while I was shuffling my way through Manhattan with hoards of peaceful Patriots, I didn’t notice the pattern until much later, but there it was, clear as day. Some of my vocal liberal friends, who at first defended then tried to explain their support of the vagina picture, offered their apologies for upsetting this opinionated, now wounded, commenter.
I confess I did it myself, calling him out for his double standard by posting a sexy picture of his favorite team’s cheerleaders, young women dressed in itty-bitty nothing and prancing around the frozen field. When he cried foul and accused me of throwing him down the “misogyny stairs,” I deleted my post rather than continue to engage him. We tend to continue to appease and placate the very people who want to keep us silent.
But the real issue is this: what is it about the vagina that saying the very word or seeing the anatomy even in a posted caricature form creates such a visceral response?
The vagina has become a hot button topic of this year’s election—a body part under constant threat of physical harm and legislative control.
Women continue to be systematically shut out of the conversation about their bodies. Shamed into silence by not only men but other women as well. We have been programmed to talk about our female anatomy in two specific ways—medical and sexual, and both conversations are restricted by a Victorian-era decorum and a perceived right to privacy.
The reality is vaginal talk hasn’t been private for decades—at least not to men. Whether they have been stuffing dollar bills into G-strings, tying up the uterus in policy, or electing a man who boasts about sexual assault, vag talk has always been within the purview of men.
But what happens when pussies talk back? When millions of women across the globe don pink knit hats and march on behalf of ourselves? We are quickly reminded of our role.
Last Sunday, still sleepy after a day of marching, I opened the Inauguration section of the New York Times and found pictures of the First Lady’s legs and pelvis. “Nodding to the Fashion of Politics, and the Politics of Fashion” Vanessa Friedman offered her readers not a full image of the sultry gown worn by the First Lady, but a hip-to-hip cropped square of her vaginal area. The black and white visual emphasized a racy slit up Mrs. Trump’s thigh and a coiffed bow around her waist. She had not included a picture of the First Lady’s face. As if the picture wasn’t clear enough, the first sentence of the article read, “In the end, she checked every box.”
What are we teaching our young girls when the only style picture of the First Lady is a crotch shot? In a few short weeks, we went from voting for our potential first women president to reducing the highest female in the land to a pretty packaged pelvis. Why is the vagina only beautiful when it is adorned in silk and chemise and attached to the arm of the man who is presenting her? And why is this acceptable, but a woman in a vagina costume is not?
We must teach girls to denounce the stigma attached to the vagina. Personal strength will only come from owning the right to express yourself and your body, free from the shame and the guilt that has been piled upon us by society, religion, and even our families. Twenty years ago, Eve Ensler fought to give the vagina a voice, but today it is women who need to own their voice.